This year, we went a little earlier than normal so we could spend time with my colleague and friend Webbie. He just bought a new place near Oshkosh for his new job with the Oshkosh Corporation.
We left the Friday before, but were concerned about the weather. Smoke had infiltrated across the border from Canada and it was pretty solid IFR most of the days Friday and Saturday. On the good news front, the weather started to clear on Monday and brief showers on Tuesday freshened up the air. The weather was about the best we’ve seen for the event.
We actually flew through Rapid City, coming and going. It entitled us to buy one of their exclusive and expressive T-shirts.
Webbie’s house is on a lake. On Saturday, we traveled up to Egg Harbor (the Cape Cod of Wisconsin) with him. We found an excellent restaurant for lunch, Casey’s BBQ and Smokehouse. In fact, Webbie introduced us to some fine restaurants the evenings we had with him. They included Rye, Truffle Pig, and TJ’s Highland Steakhouse. We had fun boating with him on Sunday. He has a fun pontoon boat with the 300 hp motor so that he could possibly pull water skiing kids and grandkids, but is perfect for touring the Wisconsin lakes and waterways.
The highlight of the airshow was the arrival of Plum 51, my new scale P-51. Mine is the first delivery with new larger propeller that is truly to scale. It’s obvious toward the end of this landing video.
We signed up for the Aviator’s Club South and used that as our home base. Nancy and Marcie made the rounds. I bounced back and forth between Rotax and other vendors. Rotax was hosting Plum 51. We received lots of positive comments.
I attended 2 Embry-Riddle events and the EAA Annual Banquet as the guest of AOPA.
Here are some photos from the event:
We had an open seat on the return, so we brought Angela with us. We all took turns on the legs flying back from Green Bay.
Here is a video of Plum 51 heading to Florida for final preparations for delivery to me in August.
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